Despite the news of the eminent demise of the Ford Taurus X, we're now not as concerned because we just got our first ride in the 2009 Ford Flex. A very hip Ford rep dropped by our extremely touristgasmic digs near Times Square to give us a ride over to dinner and get a little free press for Ford's new hauler. Despite a couple of syntax errors with the next-gen GPS system, which worked fine after we used the correct name of the city, the slab sided super wagon was off to the racesa slow crawl through the streets of Gotham.

Alan, Mark, Horbury, Mays — the whole gang was on hand to preview two new cars for the auto-show…
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Even though we were a little bit lukewarm over the design when we first saw the production version, on the streets the Flex actually looks pretty cool. Since we were being treated to a ride 'chauffeur style', the back seats are our area of expertise. The seats are firm and they travel on tracks so you can go all the way from huge legroom in the middle row and a reasonable amount in the wayback, or comfy legroom for all. The surfaces are firm, with nice perforated leather and remind us of minivan seats - readily foldable - but we did get a kick out of the Star Wars robot trooper inspired headrests. And the sunroofs - all of them - were quite a sky-sight to behold. All in all, we were pleasantly surprised and look forward to spending some time with it on our own terms.